1997

Shakespeare Electronic Conference: SHK 8.0209. Friday, 14 February 1997.
(1) From: John Cox <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 13 Feb 1997 14:10:26 -0500 (EST)
Subj: Sins in MM
(2) From: Louis C Swilley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 14 Feb 1997 07:36:13 -0600 (CST)
Subj: Re: SHK 8.0203 Qs: Sin
(3) From: Paul Nelsen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 14 Feb 1997 09:30:13 -0500 (EST)
Subj: Re: SHK 8.0203 Qs: Sin
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Cox <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 13 Feb 1997 14:10:26 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Sins in MM
James Saeger asks about Angelo's and Claudio's position on sin in MM, wondering
if there might be a difference between Catholic and Protestant positions.
Geoffrey Bullough prints an interesting parallel from Augustine (*Narrative and
Dramatic Sources* 2:418-19), roughly a thousand years before the Reformation.
John Cox
Hope College
(2)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Louis C Swilley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 14 Feb 1997 07:36:13 -0600 (CST)
Subject: 8.0203 Qs: Sin
Comment: Re: SHK 8.0203 Qs: Sin
Mr. Saeger,
Have you checked St. Thomas' *Summa* for this?
I don't know what the theologians of any denomination say about this, but
common sense tells me that Isabella can - in charity, not in justice - do this
sinlessly to save her brother, sin being necessarily in the *intention* as well
as in the nature of the deed. But the brother can not ask her to do it.
L. Swilley
Houston
(3)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul Nelsen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 14 Feb 1997 09:30:13 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 8.0203 Qs: Sin
Comment: Re: SHK 8.0203 Qs: Sin
I passed the message on to my friend Edward Isser <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>, who
had recently staged a striking production of the play at College of the Holy
Cross and in the process had given considerable thought to the complexity of
Isabella's dilemma. Ed asked me to channel the following back to the list:
1) The Pauline Principle
"evil is not to be done that good may come of it"
"For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto
his glory; why yet am I also judged a sinner? And not rather (as we
be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), Let us do
evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just" (St. Paul,
Epistle to the Romans)
2) Aquinas Notion of Venial vs. Mortal sin
If a Nazi came to your door, and you said there were no Jews
there-- you'd be guilty of a Venial sin which can be wiped away
through contrition. BUT if you turn the Jew over and he/she is
killed-- you are guilty of a mortal sin
3) The Principle of Double Effect
This grows out of an incident in ancient Rome when a group of
Christian virgins threw themselves off a bridge to avoid being raped.
The issue was/is are they guilty of the sin of committing
suicide--indeed did they commit suicide? The answer is that they did
not, because they AVOIDED being raped-- in other words their INTENTION
was to avoid rape-- their intention was not to commit suicide
So the bottom line is that if a woman is raped (Isabella?!) she is not guilty
of the sin of intercourse because there is no intentionality-- but if she
WILLINGY submits then it is a sin. The key to Measure for Measure is that both
Angelo and Claudio want Isabel to SUBMIT and that indeed WOULD be a mortal sin
that would damn her forever-- not to mention her greatest fear that her child
would be born out of wedlock "I had rather my brother die by the law than my
son should be unlawfully born" (3.1.185)
Apparently this moral position is embraced by Catholics, Protestants and
Jews!!!!!!
Not to mention American law-- where women have (unfairly) had to prove that
they "resisted."